About Bipolar Disorder

Bipolar affective disorder, or manic depression as it is sometimes known, is a mental health illness thought to affect around 1 in 50 people at some point in their lives. It is a form of mental distress that affects someone's mood or behaviour.

Those affected experience mood swings from periods when they feel terribly low and depressed, and periods when they feel high and elated. They rarely may have delusions combined with loss of judgement and inhibitions. It is a cyclical, recurrent illness which can place great strain on both the individual and their family. The length of any one of these periods can vary between an hour and several weeks or longer. How often and how severe the mood swings are varies from person to person.

However, the condition can often be partly or wholly controlled by the right combination of medication, support and self-management.